Defa classic – Christel Bodenstein: Not just the little tree

Strange: It is precisely what remains that makes one particularly acutely aware of its transience – the power of permanence sometimes also has something that freezes it. Your princess in the Defa classic “The Singing Sounding Tree” – that remains an unforgettably beautiful, cleverly intentional tearjerker. This pouty, arrogantly defiant aristocratic brat in flowing blonde hair: coldly dismisses the prince and the bear, i.e. the prince in the bear, but gradually, in the pain of self-knowledge, gains a characterful charm that shines and the ugly strands become enchanting again. That was well over 60 years ago, 1957 to be exact.

Christel Bodenstein was able to play this charmingly, boldly: how a person is overwhelmed by purity, in the middle of the opposing winds, in the middle of the icy grains of the profane. She acted alongside Manfred Krug twice in the 1960s, and for a moment it looked as if Babelsberg had grasped something of dream couple marketing: “Revue at Midnight,” a sing-dance game, and “Description of a Summer.” Like the philosophy of the seasons: spring is becoming, autumn is passing away, so it is movement; Summer stands in between, it really stands, stands hot, under the force of the sun; and all energy-saving standstill, which the heat absolutely recommends, is for a short time – nice.

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After Karl-Heinz Jakobs’ successful novel, Ralf Kirsten’s “summer” film was made, which also became a magnet: The Engineer and the Beautiful; the beauty and the stupid beast of discipline. In retrospect, the film seems like a predecessor to “Trace of the Stones”, and not just because of both main actors. This rebelliousness, this flight from the rituals of order, this desire to disrupt all the party-gray zeal of reason. Literature and censorship? That worked. That went through. That went well.

Bodenstein’s art was not heaviness, but lightness. The confident image of a self-confident, radiant early woman remains in the memory. The loyal is mad, the virtuous is frivolous. A sovereign in the blinding zones of desire. Discovered by Kurt Maetzig, then played with Slatan Dudow (“The Captain of Cologne”), then with her temporary husband Konrad Wolf (“The Little Prince”) and numerous other films such as “Maibowle”, “Silvesterpunsch”, “The Uppercut” , “Lot’s Wife”, “How to Feed a Donkey”, “When You Grow Up, Dear Adam”. When she played underpowered, she revealed a longing for exaggeration; and straightforwardness always retained a touch of truth: whoever smiles also hides pain.

The actress, who later sang chansons and directed cabarets, was not granted an early work. But the work before it belongs to the film memory of the East. Christel Bodenstein has now died at the age of 86.

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